Posters

Abstract

Many developed countries are facing great challenges in providing enough clean and reliable power to their inhabitants. There is an urgent need to expand the energy production from renewable sources and decarbonize the economy. However, European TSOs has already experienced increased challenges to maintain grid stability following the increasing share of installed renewable power. Additionally, the energy security, such as stable natural gas supply, is challenged by an unstable political climate and the recent war against Ukraine. These challenges underline the need to find solutions today, and to utilize known technology to the fullest. One promising alternative is to convert renewable power directly into hydrogen, and possibly into ammonia or e-fuels at a suitable location or at later stage. This allows offtake of excess power in the system with conversion to hydrogen, which is stored for use in periods of lower energy production. Off-grid system designs both allow energy to be captured in areas lacking electrical infrastructure and avoid adding burden to the grid in areas of congestion and low margins. To be able to successfully realize an off-grid hydrogen system powered by renewables it is necessary to leverage process-, power- and control-competencies simultaneously. In this study conducted by ABB and HydrogenPro, in collaboration with Equinor, a 100 MW factory building block with 100% renewable power has been studied. The results show that it is possible to run such a large-scale hydrogen system fed by 100% wind power in off grid mode. The variations in the wind pose great challenges for stabilizing and balancing both active and reactive power. However, it is found that through careful system design and control implementation, it is possible to regulate the system with only a modest size of battery capacity.